Amazon Hits New 52-Week High On Solid Cyber Monday Sales

Shares of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) touched a new 52-week high of $1,213.41, eventually closing the day at $1,186.00. Amazon has gained 59.8% year to date, substantially outperforming the 16.7% rally of the S&P 500.

E-commerce behemoth Amazon organized back-to-back online shopping extravaganzas, with lower prices, free shipping and product availability and it turned to be more profitable than ever, leading the stock to a new 52-week high.

Cyber Monday

For Cyber Monday, more than 30 ‘Deals for the Day’ and a number of ‘Lightning Deals’ were listed on Amazon. PlayStation 4 was among the few products that were heavily discounted. Attractive deals were also offered on Amazon devices, electronics, toys, home appliances and footwear.

Strong economic indicators like record job data and declining unemployment rate are encouraging shoppers to spend more online. Adobe Analytics expects this year’s Cyber Monday to be the biggest-ever U.S. online shopping day with roughly $6.6 billion of sales.

Amazon.com, Inc. Price and Consensus

It’s a known fact that Amazon’s retail business is hard to beat on price, choice and convenience. It currently offers 480 million plus products of various brands. It has established its brand loyalty through its Prime and Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) strategy.

Around 50 million products qualify for free two-day shipping to Prime members. Moreover, Prime Air, Trucks, pickup locations, artificial intelligence boost logistics at Amazon. Regular content addition to its online video streaming platform has helped to increase Prime memberships.

Thanksgiving and Black Friday Sales

According to Adobe Analytics, online sales during Thanksgiving and Black Friday hit all-time highs. U.S. retailers garnered $7.9 billion from Thanksgiving and Black Friday combined sales, up 17.9% year over year.

Per GBH Insights, the retailer Amazon dominated online sales during Black Friday and accounted for 45-50% sales. The company raked in more than $1 billion sales in just 24 hours. Amazon stated that on Thanksgiving day, orders via mobiles increased more than 50% than the year-ago period.

Thanksgiving sales were up 18.3% year over year to $2.9 billion while Black Friday, the biggest shopping day in America, sales increased 16.9% to $5 billion. It is estimated that Amazon accounted for 50% of all e-commerce sales on Black Friday. Smartphones accounted for the majority of the sales.

According to Criteo, 40% of the purchases came from mobile on Black Friday, up 17.9% year over year. Also Prime membership program sales were remarkable. Prime members have spent more 25% more compared with the last year. (Read More at Amazon Leading Record-Breaking Start to Holiday Season)

Zacks Rank & Stocks to Consider

Amazon currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Intel Corp. (NASDAQ:INTC) , IPG Photonics Corp. (NASDAQ:IPGP) and NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) are three better-ranked stocks in the broader technology sector. All of them sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Long-term earnings growth for Intel, IPG Photonics and NVIDIA are currently projected to be 8.4%, 19.67% and 11.2%, respectively.

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